Tag: GreatLakesNews

In Kenya following the recent brutal killing of Kenya Police officers in an ambush by cattle rustlers, two local officials in the area have been arrested and charged with murder.

A Maralal court has charged a councillor and four chiefs with 12 counts of robbery and murders of 12 police officers in Baragoi, Samburu County.

On Wednesday, the accused were charged with stealing G3 rifles from the law enforcement officers, each costing Sh70,000 before killing them.

The court denied them bail and were remanded till November 26.

Uganda has closed its south-western Bunagana border in Kisoro with Congo.

Authorities say the border post was benefitting the M23 rebels fighting President Joseph Kabila’s government.

UPDF’s Second Division commander Brig. Patrick Kankiriho announced the closure on Tuesday at a meeting with Kisoro security committee.

“Uganda was allowing people to cross to Congo without paying visa fees. But in Congo, the M23 group charges visa fees and taxes for movement of persons, vehicles and goods ferried across.

This means that M23 were earning revenue because of our open border. To remove suspicion, the Government has decided to close the border,” Doka said.

Independent sources said the development followed Kinshasa government’s request to Uganda to close the border post, which they said, was being used by the rebels to raise money through taxes.

Uganda will this week, assume the chair of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), a development that trade experts believe will bring huge benefits to the country.

Despite being a COMESA member, Uganda will for the first time also enter the free trade area (FTA) regime of the regional trade bloc.

Joining the FTA means the tariff charges on the majority of imports and exports between Uganda and other COMESA states will drop to 2% from 10% compared to what is levied on goods from states like China except for sensitive goods.

President Yoweri Museveni is expected to chair the 19-member trade bloc for the next one year.

As the chair, the country will also have the opportunity to influence discussions and decisions especially on trade related matters.

Uganda’s Trade minister Amelia Kyambadde on Tuesday said one of the biggest opportunities from COMESA is the raising of the tax threshold to $2,000 for cross-border trade.

This means small traders and businesses operating in the bloc can carry goods worth up to $2,000 tax free across the borders.

COMESA secretariat has also set up business support centers for documentation for registered small traders.

Bujumbura will host a trade fair of products manufactured locally from member states of East African Community (EAC).

The trade exibition will commence December 2-9, a senior government official said here on Monday in a press briefing.

“The Burundian trade ministry is doing all the best to succeed the event because we believe that the trade fair will allow Burundian manufacturers to show their products and promote them,” said Patrice Rwimo, permanent secretary at the Burundian trade ministry.

“Burundians manufacture beautiful objects, but they have very few opportunities to advertize them,” she said.

According to her, this will be a “rare opportunity” for them to exhibit their achievements.

The other opportunity of the trade fair is that Burundian manufacturers “will learn from the experience of manufacturers” from the other East African Community (EAC) states in order to improve their way of working.The EAC bloc is made up of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

A new commuter train has been launched in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi – the first of its kind since independence in 1963.

The train will run between the city centre and the suburb of Syokimau, where Kenya has built its first railway station in more than 80 years.

The service is intended to ease traffic congestion in Nairobi, one of the fastest-growing African cities with a population of about three million.

President Mwai Kibaki was the first commuter on the new train.

He travelled back to Nairobi along with his officials, while ordinary passengers were banned for security reasons.

The first paying customers are expected to take the return trip to Syokimau.

Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Okello Oryem has said his country feels “gutted” and “betrayed” by a UN panel of experts’ leaked report that claims Uganda was arming M23 rebels based in DRC.

“If the UN upholds the report and condemns Uganda, we shall withdraw troops from Somalia. If they don’t adopt the report and exonerate Uganda, we shall stay,” Oryem said on Sunday.

“On one hand they say we are thugs and on the other they say we are doing a good job. They cannot claim that the UPDF is a professional army, doing a fantastic job in Somalia and in the same breath say they are thugs promoting war in Congo by supporting M23 rebels.

You choose either of that because the UPDF in Somalia is the same UPDF in Uganda,” Oryem said.

The UPDF soldiers account for more than a third of the 17,600 UN-mandated African Union peacekeeping Mission (AMISOM) battling al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab militants in Somalia.

Kenya was elected on Monday to one of the coveted seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

There was no expressed opposition to Kenya in the 193-nation General Assembly, which decides the make-up of the 47-member council.

Kenya was one of five countries nominated to fill five open seats on the Geneva-based council that are reserved for African states.

Mr Macharia Kamau, the Kenyan ambassador to the United Nations, said the affirmation “sends a signal to the world that we are committed to the human rights movement.”

Kenya’s membership of the council is “in keeping with the momentum built domestically around the new Constitution,” Ambassador Kamau added, describing that document as “one of the most exemplary instruments of human rights on earth.”

Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon and Sierra Leone were the other countries chosen for the Africa seats. The new members will serve three-year terms beginning in January.

Setting forth its credentials last month in a note to the president of the UN General Assembly, Kenya pointed to its role in mediating conflicts in East and Central Africa as well as its standing as a safe haven for refugees from many countries.

A total of 18 countries gained seats on the council on Monday, with a few of them, including Ethiopia, drawing criticisms from advocacy groups for their records on human rights.

Venezuela, Pakistan and Kazakhstan were also among the new members accused of broad failure to respect human rights.

The United States won re-election to the council in the only competition for a vacant seat.

Five countries had vied to fill three vacancies for the Western group, with Germany and Ireland joining the US as victors. Greece and Sweden lost in their bids for seats.

Uganda’s anti-gay bill will be passed before the end of 2012 despite international criticism of the draft legislation, the speaker of the country’s parliament said Monday, insisting it is what most Ugandans want.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told The Associated Press that the bill, which originally mandated death for some gay acts, will become law this year.

Ugandans “are demanding it,” she said, reiterating a promise she made before a meeting on Friday of anti-gay activists who spoke of “the serious threat” posed by homosexuals to Uganda’s children.

Some Christian clerics at the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, asked the speaker to pass the law as “a Christmas gift.”

“Speaker, we cannot sit back while such (a) destructive phenomenon is taking place in our nation,” the activists said in a petition.

“We therefore, as responsible citizens, feel duty-bound to bring this matter to your attention as the leader of Parliament … so that lawmakers can do something to quickly address the deteriorating situation in our nation.”

The anti-gay activists paraded in front of Kadaga, with parents and schoolchildren holding up signs saying homosexuality is “an abomination.”

The speaker then promised to consider the bill within two weeks, declaring that “the power is in our hands.”

“Who are we not to do what they have told us? These people should not be begging us,” Kadaga said of activists who want the bill to become law.

Uganda’s penal code criminalizes homosexuality, but in 2009 a lawmaker with the ruling party said a stronger law was needed to protect Uganda’s children from homosexuals.

Parliamentarian David Bahati charged at the time that wealthy homosexuals from the West were “recruiting” poor children into gay lifestyles with promises of money and a better life.

Bahati believes his bill is sufficiently popular among lawmakers to pass without difficulty.

Gay rights activists in Uganda, while opposing the bill, point out that it has helped their fight for equality by putting what used to be a taboo subject on the national agenda.

Homosexuality is illegal in many African countries.

Pepe Julian Onziema, a prominent Ugandan gay activist, said the new push to pass the law was frustrating.

“It’s disappointing, but we are also going to seek a meeting with the speaker,” Onziema said. But it is unlikely the speaker will agree to such a gathering, he said.

While the bill appears to be popular in Uganda, it has attracted widespread criticism abroad.

President Barack Obama has described it as “odious,” while some European countries have threatened to cut aid to Uganda if the bill becomes law.

The police death toll from an ambush on Kenyan officers in the north of the country more than doubled to 26 Sunday after more bodies were found.

Locals in the northern district where the initial attack took place also said that fighting between police and gunmen had continued for a second day.

The previous police death toll from Saturday’s attack on officers pursuing cattle thieves was 11.

“More bodies have been recovered — the total is now 29” — including 26 police officers and three bandits, said an annonymous police source.

“Of the 18 bodies found this afternoon, 15 are policemen,” added the source.

The remoteness of the northern Baragoi district, where the attack took place, explained why it took a day after the attack for the bodies to be discovered, said the source.

Rebels in Sudan say they have shot down a government military aircraft after it had bombed rebel targets.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North) says the Antonov bomber crashed on Wednesday in the Jau area, South Kordofan state.

The Sudanese authorities have not commented on the rebel claim.

Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes to escape fighting between government troops and rebels in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

The government plane was shot down on Wednesday afternoon, Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, a spokesman for the SPLM-North, told the AFP news agency.

He said the rebels “shot at it until they saw the wing burning”, adding that the aircraft went down near Jau – on the disputed border between Sudan and South Sudan.

The rebel claim has not been independently verified because of restricted access to the area.

Correspondents say the SPLM-North sees itself as continuing in the footsteps of the movement from which it sprang, the SPLM, which now runs South Sudan.

Fighting is said to be vicious, with refugees describing frequent air raids by government forces. The Sudanese military denies claims it is targeting the Nuba ethnic community who are seen as rebel supporters.

The SPLM-North has twice shelled the South Kordofan capital, Kadugli, this month.

The government in Khartoum accuses South Sudan of backing the rebels – a claim denied by Juba.